Human Rights Watch World Report 2001

Protection from abuse remained elusive for lesbians, gay men, and bisexual
and transgender people in 2000, despite the reaffirmation in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights that "All people are born free and equal in
dignity and rights." In virtually every country in the world, people
suffered from de jure and de facto discrimination based on their actual or
perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Sexual minorities were
persecuted in a significant number of countries and in many ways, including
the application of the death penalty or long prison sentences for private
sexual acts between consenting adults. In some countries, sexual minorities
were targeted for extrajudicial execution. In many countries, police actively
participated in the persecution. Pervasive bias within the criminal justice
system in many countries effectively precluded members of sexual minorities
from seeking redress.

These attacks on human rights and fundamental freedoms also occurred in
international fora where states were supposedly working to promote human
rights. For example, in New York in June at the five year review meeting for
the Fourth World Conference on Women, many delegates refused to recognize
womens sexual rights and some states continued to defend violations of
womens human rights in the name of religious and cultural practices.
Activists stressed the connection between the need for states to recognize
womens right to control their sexuality and enjoy physical autonomy if
states were serious about wanting to reduce violence against women. Many
delegates refused to acknowledge that discrimination against lesbian and
single women created a climate in which attacks on such women were deemed
justified.

Other intergovernmental bodies played a significant role in upholding the
human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. In July,
for example, the Council of Europes Parliamentary Assembly approved Armenia
and Azerbaijans applications for membership with the understanding that
each country would repeal legislation that discriminated against lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender persons. In a further debate the assembly voted to
support recommendations that national governments recognize persecution on the
grounds of sexual orientation for the purposes of asylum and grant bi-national
same-sex couples the same residence rights as bi-national heterosexual
couples. In September, the Parliamentary Assembly called upon its member
states to include sexual orientation among the prohibited bases of
discrimination, revoke sodomy laws and similar legislation criminalizing
sexual relations between consenting adults of the same sex, and apply the same
age of consent for all sexual relations.

Despite the councils laudable efforts, the International Gay and Lesbian
Association (IGLA) reported to the Parliamentary Assemblys Legal Affairs
and Human Rights Committee in March that "discrimination against lesbian,
gay and bisexual persons remains endemic and extremely serious" in Europe
and that "[h]omophobic violence is common, even in countries like Sweden
which are world leaders in their support for lesbian and gay rights."

Persecution

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals were vilified by
officials of several states. Their claims to equal enjoyment of rights and
equal protection before the law were routinely denied in many states.
State-sponsored hostility and entrenched bias toward lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender people not only placed them at risk of violence and
persecution by agents of the state, but virtually guaranteed that they would
face serious obstacles if they turned to the state for protection or redress
when attacked by private actors.

World Pride 2000, an international event calling attention to human rights
violations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, held in July in
Rome, came under heavy criticism from the Vatican. In the wake of the Vaticans
criticism, Italys prime minister Guiliano Amato ordered the countrys
minister for equal rights to cancel her ministrys official sponsorship of
World Pride. The pope went on to condemn the event as "an offense to the
Christian values of the city."

Leaders in Namibia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe continued to denounce lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals during the year. Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe continued his longstanding anti-gay campaign. At a New
Years Day celebration, he characterized same-sex marriage as "an
abomination, a rottenness of culture, real decadence of culture." In
Namibia, President Sam Nujoma was regularly quoted as calling lesbians and
gays "unnatural" and against the will of God. State television
reported in October 2000 that Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo urged new
police officers to "eliminate" lesbians and gays "from the face
of Namibia."

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni appeared to back away from his September
1999 directive to Criminal Investigations Division officers to "look for
homosexuals, lock them up and charge them." At a news conference in
November 1999, he criticized lesbians and gays for "provoking and
upsetting" society but suggested that they could live in Uganda as long
they "did it quietly."

In the month after President Museveni ordered the arrest of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender Ugandans, the International Gay and Lesbian Human
Rights Commission (IGLHRC) received reports that several students had been
expelled from schools for their involvement in same-sex relationships. The
offices of Sister Namibia, a magazine known for its strong support of gay and
lesbian rights, was set on fire on July 10 in what appeared to be a deliberate
attack; the Namibian National Society for Human Rights noted, "While the
motive for the attack is not yet known, the attack occurred barely a week
after Namibian President Sam Nujoma launched a verbal attack on the homosexual
community."

According to the Lebanese human rights organization Multi-Initiative on
Rights: Search, Assist and Defend (MIRSAD), Beirut Morals Police (Police des
Mours) officers entered the offices of Destination, a Lebanese internet
service provider, in April to obtain information about the owners of a website
for Lebanese gays and lesbians that was accessible to internet users in
Lebanon but maintained in the United States. Later that month, officers
questioned the general manager and another senior staff member at the Hobaich
police station. When MIRSAD posted an urgent action message on several
websites, the military prosecutor charged MIRSAD and Destination officials
with "tarnishing the reputation of the Morals Police by distributing a
printed flier," in violation of article 157 of the Military Penal Code;
their trial was scheduled for September 25. If convicted, they would face
three months to three years of imprisonment.

Gay men, lesbians, and transgender people have been subjected to a campaign
of terror, violence, and murder in El Salvador over the last several years.
Governmental indifference to these offenses was compounded by state agents
active participation in violence. A person who identified himself as a member
of the special Presidential Battalion used his weapon to threaten a
transgender person who was participating in Lesbian and Gay Pride Day
celebrations in the Constitution Plaza in San Salvador. Asociación "Entre
Amigos" Executive Director William Hernández repeatedly received death
threats. The Salvadorean police acknowledged that Hernández and "Entre
Amigos" qualified for protection due to the repeated attacks and threats
to which they had been subjected. Nevertheless, the chief of the National
Civil Police initially refused to appoint any officers to provide protection
because officers who "do not share the sexual tastes" of those they
should protect would feel uncomfortable doing their work. Hernández was
placed under special police protection following an international campaign.

In August, a longstanding prohibition against the use of a public park in
Aguascalientes, Mexico, by "dogs and homosexuals" became the focus
of public attention after a sign announcing the ban was repaired and reposted
at the park entrance. Asked for his thoughts on the gay community in
interviews broadcast on the Mexican network Televisa and in the national
newspaper La Jornada, Aguascalientes Director of Regulations Jorge Alvarez
Medina stated that he was against "this type of people" and declared
that he "will not allow access to homosexuals" while he remained in
charge of municipal regulations. In a welcome development, however, National
Action Party (Partido de Acción Nacional, PAN) National President Luís
Felipe Bravo Mena denied that Alvarez Medinas remarks reflected the policy
of the PAN, the governing party in Aguascalientes. Declaring that "we
reject and repudiate" Alvarez Medinas remarks, Bravo Mena stated,
"If any doubt remains, I can say that I feel that this is absolutely
reprehensible. We do not believe in any type of discrimination and reject
it."

At least four transgender persons in Valencia, in the Venezuelan state of
Carabobo, were reportedly detained without judicial order by Carabobo police,
according to Amnesty International. In July, police improperly detained two
transgender persons for eight days; in August, officers forced two other
members of Valencias transgender community to undress in the street, beat
them, and then held them for several days in August without permitting them
legal, medical, or family visits.

In September, the Brazilian GLBT Pride Parade Association of São Paulo (Associação
da Parada do Orgulho GLBT de São Paulo) received a letter bomb, one day after
several gay and lesbian rights organizations and other human rights NGOs
received letters threatening to "exterminate" gays, Jews, blacks,
and persons from Brazils northeast. There were an estimated 169
bias-motivated killings of sexual minorities in Brazil in 1999, according to a
May report issued by the Grupo Gay de Bahia; the states of Pernambuco and São
Paulo recorded the highest number of killings.

The Criminalization of Private Sexual Conduct

Over eighty countries continued to criminalize sexual activity between
consenting adults of the same sex, according to the IGLHRC. Elsewhere,
national or local legislation discriminated against lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender persons by imposing different standards for the legal age of
consent. In addition, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons were
often targeted for arrest under provisions relating to "scandalous
conduct," "public decency," loitering, and similar charges.

In Saudi Arabia, where sodomy was punishable by the death penalty, six men
were executed for that crime in July. In April, nine men were sentenced to up
to 2,600 lashes each for transvestism and "deviant sexual behavior";
because the sentence could not be carried out in a single session without
killing the men, it was to be carried out at fifteen-day-intervals over a
period of two years.

Sri Lankas Press Council fined a gay rights activist in June for filing
a complaint against a newspaper that had published a letter urging that
lesbians be turned over to convicted rapists. The council declared that being
a lesbian was an "act of sadism" and that the activist, rather than
the newspaper, was guilty of promoting improper values.

At this writing, the Romanian Senate was considering the abolition of
article 200, which criminalized all sexual relations between consenting adults
of the same sex if "committed in public or if producing public
scandal." The article was interpreted to include casual gestures of
intimacy such as holding hands and kissing. The measure passed the Chamber of
Deputies, the Romanian Parliaments lower house, on June 28. The measures
under consideration did not address article 201, which continued to penalize
"acts of sexual perversion" if "committed in public or if
producing public scandal" with one to five years of imprisonment. A 1998
report jointly published by Human Rights Watch and the IGLHRC documented the
human rights abuses suffered by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
persons in Romania as a result of both provisions.

In response to a 1993 decision of the European Court of Human Rights,
Cyprus amended its criminal laws in June to equalize the male age of consent,
setting it at eighteen. Before the amendment, the age of consent for men
engaging in heterosexual sex had been sixteen, while the age of consent for
men engaging in homosexual sex had been eighteen. The age of consent for all
women continued to be sixteen. Other European countries continued to maintain
unequal ages of consent. A notable example was Austria, where the age of
consent was fourteen for heterosexual males and eighteen for men who had
sexual relations with other men.

In the United States, fifteen states retained laws prohibiting consensual
sexual relations between adults of the same sex, classifying these acts as
"sodomy," "sexual misconduct," "unnatural
intercourse," or "crimes against nature." A Texas court
overturned the states sodomy law in June, while the highest court of the
neighboring state of Louisiana upheld the states "crimes against
nature" statute in July. A challenge to Massachusetts sodomy law was
pending at this writing. Massachusetts was the only state in New England to
retain legislation prohibiting sexual relations between consenting adults of
the same sex.

In August, former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his
adopted brother Sukma Dermawan were both convicted of sodomy. Anwar was
sentenced to nine years in prison; Sukma received six years and four lashes
with a rattan cane. The prosecution of Anwar was widely viewed inside and
outside Malaysia as a case of political revenge against Anwar and his
supporters, who had grown increasingly critical of Prime Minister Mahathir in
the months prior to Anwars ouster and arrest. Anwars prosecution was
also seen as undermining the integrity of the Malaysian judiciary, which had
already been criticized widely for its lack of independence (see Malaysia
chapter).

In May, the Zimbabwe Supreme Court upheld former President Canaan Bananas
1998 conviction for sodomy and indecent assault. Banana was quoted in 1999 as
describing homosexuality as "deviant, abominable, and wrong according to
the scriptures and according to Zimbabwean culture."

Even in countries where the laws criminalizing private consensual conduct
between adults were not enforced, the existence of these laws provided the
foundation for attacks on sexual minorities. Men and women who identified as
gay, lesbian, or bisexual were attacked as immoral and putative criminals.
Thus, discrimination on the basis of this characterization was deemed
justified.